Sam Killmeyer lives and writes in Fort Collins, Colorado, where she earned an MFA at Colorado State University. Before moving to Colorado, she spent three years in Manhattan, KS, where she fell in love with the prairie and the Flint Hills. Her poems can be found in Mid-American Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, RATTLE, and elsewhere. You can also listen to her poem on the poetry podcast The Slowdown or visit samkillmeyer.wordpress.com to find more of her writing.
Waters
All the lakes I love are reservoirs
with concrete waterfalls kids jump off
in spring when the water rises. I walk
through parks and name them duck
ponds, lined with cottonwoods
and an asphalt path. My parents don’t
know what to do with water. Just like
the summer the septic tank gave
up on us, too full, and a pond grew
up beside the crab apple, scummed
and stinking, cattails next to the rigged
outdoor shower—garden hose through
basement window. I scrubbed my body
to the sunset, black limbs of the Osage
Orange trees. I have inherited
the fear of water. I kayak near the shore.
I moved to land-locked Kansas, drove
through drought and yellowed corn fields
the only variation waves of red-brown
sorghum. When we drive out west
and the combines kick clouds of dust
between the turbines you tell me
how it takes 3,000 years for soil
to form. I want to stand buried to my knees
in silt. O how our grandparents stood
tall on top of concrete, trusted the river
to wash the slick away. When will I stand
near fresh water, terrified into awe. When
will we live again beside water.